Suffer and Survive

The name Haldane is well known is scientific circles. J.S. might not be quite as well known as his son J.B.S. but he still has plenty of claims to fame. In Suffer and Survive: The Extreme Life of J. S. Haldane Martin Goodman tells his story.

J.S.Haldane's main work concerned respiration and the effects of toxic gases. Hovever, he wasn't the sort of person to hide himself away in the lab -the book starts with an account of Haldane going to the scene of a mining disaster, to find out whether the deaths were caused by poisonous gases. And he wasn't above testing the effects of such gases on himself - he even had a special chamber in his house where he could spend several hours breathing them in. He was also involved in devising protection from gas attacks in the First World War, and in looking at the problems faced by mountaineers in rarefied air.

My one criticism of the book would be that Haldane came over as too perfect. Clearly he was highly opinionated, and sometimes his opinion turned out wrong, but I felt that Goodman glossed over these occasions. But if you keep that in mind then you'll find it a very readable book, which tells the reader about important -and practical - scientific work done by a man who is possibly less well known than he should be.